Law and legal issues

BRADENTON, Fla. - Negotiators for Jefferson County, Ala., are preparing to take a complex plan to Wall Street they hope will restructure the county's troubled $3.2 billion of outstanding sewer debt, most of which is in auction- and variable-rate securities.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider its unanimous decision invalidating their gambling compact signed last November.

CHICAGO - Regulators from the Missouri secretary of state's office - joined by their colleagues from five other states - led a special inspection yesterday of Wachovia Corp.'s St. Louis-based securities division in an ongoing probe of its practices involving auction-rate securities following the $330 billion market's collapse.

The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that even if a federal court in Alabama finds the swaps Jefferson County sold earlier this decade are not "securities-based" and therefore outside the SEC's jurisdiction, the case against two former county officials and a lobbyist should still go forward because they allegedly violated anti-fraud regulations as well as Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules.

DALLAS - A computer technician became the fifth person to plead guilty to bribing an El Paso County commissioner this week, but more than a year after the first guilty plea, none of the five commissioners have been charged with any crime.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., now appears poised to add Citi as the third member of its new banking team to work on restructuring the county's troubled $3.2 billion sewer debt program, county officials said.

WASHINGTON - A federal appellate court ruled yesterday that i-Deal LLC's Parity electronic bidding system does not infringe on a 2001 patent obtained by MuniAuction Inc., rejecting a lower court's ruling that i-Deal pay MuniAuction $84.6 million.

CHICAGO - Wisconsin finance officials will spend the next several months "assessing" the full impact - projected to be $277 million - of a state Supreme Court decision last week overturning the sales tax on customized computer software, but no budget action is expected until after November when new revenue estimates are due.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., Commissioner Jim Carns late Friday said the government had a tentative plan to restructure its $3.2 billion sewer debt program that was "very near acceptance" by creditors when the commission last week fired its top negotiators.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., commissioners yesterday fired top negotiators working on the county's $3.2 billion sewer debt crisis, including Merrill Lynch & Co.

SACRAMENTO - Unions representing public employees in Vallejo, Calif., asked a judge to dismiss the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy case Friday, arguing that Vallejo can afford to pay its bills.

Vallejo’s creditors face a deadline today to object to the San Francisco Bay-area city’s bankruptcy filing.

WASHINGTON - In the first state-level lawsuit against an investment firm over auction-rate securities, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin filed securities fraud charges yesterday against UBS Securities LLC and UBS Financial Services for selling retail investors auction-rate paper as "liquid, safe, money-market" instruments even though the defendants knew it was not.

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sought to limit the influence of credit rating agencies and boost the role of analysts at investment firms, in the last of three sets of new rating agency rules the SEC has proposed in response to the subprime mortgage crisis.

SAN FRANCISCO Vallejo, Calif., on Tuesday asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to reject labor contracts and said it plans to cap interest payments on its outstanding municipal debt.

CHICAGO A federal judge yesterday set Nov. 3 as the trial date for former Bear, Stearns & Co. public finance banker P. Nicholas Hurtgen on charges that he participated in an extortion scheme involving a Chicago-area hospital as it sought state regulatory approval to build a new hospital.

A judicial panel this week ordered the consolidation in a federal court in New York City of seven related class action lawsuits brought by a number of states and localities that allege Wall Street and other firms conspired in anti-competitive price fixing of municipal derivatives and guaranteed investment contracts.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A Jefferson County, Ala., resident yesterday filed a 14-count lawsuit against hundreds of people and firms connected with the county's troubled $3.2 billion sewer debt program.

SAN FRANCISCO — Finance officials in Vallejo, Calif., which filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection last month, told the City Council last week that they are close to an agreement with Union Bank of California to restructure outstanding variable-rate debt.

SAN FRANCISCO - San Diego voters go to the polls today in an election that will serve as a referendum on the financial reforms California's second-biggest city has undertaken since its 2004 pension and municipal disclosure scandal.